ILX is twenty-five years old

Really. (The actual anniversary was four days back, and this was the thread that started it all at ILM.)

Wow! Congrats all

Groke was with us all along

all around the world statues crumble for us

Wow!

Same age as this fella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyren_Williams

Our next goal: our well deserved Super Bowl victory.

The infant ILE caught the attention of the crew over at Ask a Drunk. We were bemused.

Happy birthday to us. Oh god we're so old.

Do we have any users currently posting who are younger than the board?

I've been here for 19 of them. Christ

Bought Vocalcity at Other Music in Cambridge, was blown away and looked for people talking about it. I think ILM was still on Greenspun then. There are worse places to hang out online.

25 in message board years is like 85 irl

xps Maybe a couple of younger posters?

How old were you as of April 3, 2024?

H.P is the youngest regular ILXor I am aware of, and he's 30 iirc

Philip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun

key sentence in that wikipedia article:

Greenspun's Oracle-based community site LUSENET was an important early host of free forums.

Children Of Men actually an allegory for webforums, explains its popularity here

anyone else in the "ILXor for more than half my lifetime" club?

it was either the DroneOn mailing list or a simon reynolds blogpost that led me here in 2003. sporadic poster ever since. ilx can rent a car now!

ilx can stay on their parents' insurance for one more year!

I thought there were some threads that go back to 1999.

I think they were glitched somehow, iirc?

will this be the year ILX finally buys a car? _the_ car? the acura ilx?

I thought there were some threads that go back to 1999

this is a board for the NEW millennium, not the darkest past

https://web.archive.org/web/20011130073203/http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=I%20Love%20Everything

https://www.ilxor.com/faq.html

I Love Music was set up in August 2000 by Tom Ewing, who wanted a bulletin board as part of his Freaky Trigger music website but didn't have the space or know-how himself.

(I'd not seen that FAQ page before -- found it linked from wikipedia. Is there a link for it here anywhere?)

Amazing you found it! As I recall, stet bricked it into a small chamber along with a cask of amontillado about a decade ago.

I'm drinking amontillado right now, no joke.. with some olive

*Reads faq. Still doesn't know what "hen fap" means.*

anyone else in the "ILXor for more than half my lifetime" club?

― c u (crüt)

It me!

I thought there were some threads that go back to 1999.

― Noob Layman (WmC)

I think they were glitched somehow, iirc?

― sleeve

Yep, some kind of glitch made date stamps on a few threads go haywire, anything pre-'00 is a lie.

happy birthday ILX it's been a fun ride

anything pre-'00 is a lie

so the Y2K fears were REAL after all

cheers emil.y!

I'm pretty sure at some point in the past... decade or so, the FAQ was still accessible from at least one page, like New Questions or something, but it seems that's not the case anymore.

It's always fun to stumble on site features that I've forgotten about or hardly ever see. Like Random Questions and Browse by Date

In my mind this place was around forever before I started lurking and I’m still The New Guy, but it’s been around 21 years. I have no idea how I stumbled into ILX but it’s my favorite place on the internet.

I've said this before, but I was googling "Charalambides" when I found the site in I think 2004. It took me at least a year to realize there were other views besides "New Questions", lol.

the first thread I followed was of a mentally ill guy on a roof in san francisco, threatening to jump... the police were there, and whomever started the thread was posting up to the minute photographs of the ordeal

I remember that one! I think it was There's a guy outside my window who's been threatening to jump all night!

It ended with him actually going off the roof then a few ppl (self included) being a bit scoldy about the whole thing, but in retrospect it was a bit grim to be making jokes about someone suicidal, wild west days etc

i don't remember how i ended up here. i leaned on this place through a lot of shit and spread some myself. i'm glad i stuck around. i've probably learned 50% of what i know or something stupid from this here message board. happy 25th baby, you're all grown now.

I'm still sitting in the same musty internet cafe, nursing a cold pot of lady grey

H.P is the youngest regular ILXor I am aware of, and he's 30 iirc

― jaymc, Saturday, 30 August 2025 03:50 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Very unnerving to read this

lol i dont know why i said "iirc." i found a 2021 thread where you said you were 26. thats the xls magic, baby!

Tbh, I am still sitting outside, sitting on the patio, ear to the wall every now and then, trying to make sure I'm on the bleeding edge of music and media criticism, only to hear dull voices through the fibro: maybe im writing in shorthand so you think im like, an idiot, when I think im making pretty clear sense? ...I have to say you guys are ignoring the larger question: what is reality.

25 more years!

baby diego

Xls magic will catalogue all your idiocy and worst moment, and you will like it!

How about that

jaymc, how old am i?

this is the thread where we ask jaymc how old we are (bcz we are so old we have forgot)

p sure you can see me from westbury white horse is around 20 years old. only mention this because I am consistently astonished at this poster's expansive knowledge of music lost to time, you would think they must have been there.

SBARRO IS GOOD. EAT AT SBARRO. SBARRO. EAT THERE. HAVED SOME FOOD. SPADGETTY. BIG BOWLS. SBARRO. FORK. KNIFE. MILKSHAKE DRINK. TASTES GOOD. NABKIN DISPENDER. HOT AIR BLOWER. COST MORE MDONILLDS. BETTER THEN MDONILLDS. COST MORE BURGER KING. BETTER THEN BURGER KING. SBARRO COST MORE DOLLARS AND BETTER THEN THOSED ONES. HAVED SPADGETTY. SBARRO. BIG BOWLS. SIT AT BOOTHS. WAIT FOR SPADGETTY. FORK AND KNIFE. HOT AIR BLOWER. THEY COST MORE. THEY ACT NICE. SBARRO PAY THEM. YOU PAY THEM. JUST USE MONEY. DISPENDER. HOT AIR BLOWER. GARLICK BRED. FORK AND KNIFE. BIG BOWL OF SPADGETTYS. TO GIVED THEM MONEY. EATING BOOTH. JUST PAY WITH MONEY. THEY DO THE REST. PARMAZING CHEEZE DISPENDER. TASTES GOOD. BETTER THAN MDONILIDS. HOT AIR BLOWER. GARLIC BRED ROLL. TASTES GOOD. WAIT FOR SPADGETTY. CHAIR FOR BABIES. USE DISPENDER. USE FORK. USE KNIFE. USE BOOTH. USE SBARRO. THEY DO THE REST.
-- T✧✧@K✧✧.E✧✧, Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:16 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili) at 6:44 29 Aug 25

jaymc, how old am i?

35

missed the first 2.5 years but ilx has been incredibly important to me and introduced me to wonderful things and led me to meet a number of amazing ppl irl

i love you all (except momus)

https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/Conway-Twitty-I-Had-a-True-Love-Music-Performance-CD_aa7d9ee0-caa7-4b22-acf4-2bedba14fb34.5b26a09df9e8ba119eddc2c47bed4e1c.jpeg?odnHeight=768&odnWidth=768&odnBg=FFFFFF

oh, that link to webarchive is fuckin up my head, that look, those persons. really really ‘losing my edge’ feelings

oh and happy bday

happy quarter century u old fartz *peels out on scooter, hits fire hydrant, breaks hip & dies*

i haf also been here more than half my life... the f is wrong w/me

in my defense i didn't post much for the first couple decades

what if this place is still here in another 25 years

oh dip what if WE'RE still here

How many were around in the pre-ILX days, usenet's rec.music.misc and then alt.music.(something)?

bendy and i were on alt.music.chapel-hill

scared to ask what's up with 3.2.3

Happy 25 ilx. I was so confused when I found it because I thought it was just a music board but then it turned out to be everything.

Couldn't even begin to count the valuable things — music, movies, books, political theorists, so-not-gonna-happens — I've learned about from the smart and interesting people here.

Just remembered, rec.music.alt and alt.music.misc were the usenet groups.

How many were around in the pre-ILX days, usenet's rec.music.misc and then alt.music.(something)?

I ran the DroneOn, Seance, Bomp, and Vox lists but alt.music.alternative was my main haunt (I got on usenet in 1986). I saw someone posting a lot from UC Irvine, turned out to be Ned. First post May 2001

Happy birthday us!

anyone else in the "ILXor for more than half my lifetime" club?

― c u (crüt), Friday, 29 August 2025 bookmarkflaglink

Me, but I think there will be many here in that club

tbc i remain the youngest ilxor at heart always_has_been_spacemen.jpg

does youngest mean most irritating who can say

anyway well done us

xp: you can't be irritating unless you've been banned four times.

I wss on aus.gothic back in the Usenet days, which is weirdly still chugging along with like a couple of people and a pile of spam last I checked (though that was some time ago).

Sorry aus.culture.gothic it was. My brain is failing!

might as well keep it going, too much hassle to delete

I missed the first 3 years but I checked and it's mostly socially conservative Belle and Sebastian fans so no big.

Another OG (well, 02-era) checking in, for the first time in lots of years.

Thanks for everything. This place opened my eyes re: diff kinds of music, made me much smarter than I had any right to be, and changed the entire course of my life (met a fellow ilm dude, set up a thing, thing was a success, many doors opened, life became infinitely better).

Hurrah for that!

I saw someone posting a lot from UC Irvine, turned out to be Ned.

All part of my plan. (Joined alt.music.alternative in fall 1993.)

I read alt.music.alternative for a bit at uni in 1997 but never posted to it (iirc). I was also on a few email lists in the late 90s/early 00s - Bomp, indiepop, some 77 punk thing. I think I found ilx via some blog I was reading that linked to it in about 2004

gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili) at 6:44 29 Aug 25

jaymc, how old am i?

35

― jaymc, Friday, August 29, 2025 8:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

not until next month! but yeah

I missed the first 3 years but I checked and it's mostly socially conservative Belle and Sebastian fans so no big.

Momus will be thrilled by that.

Good morning!

wow happy 25. i'm grateful to be (semi-tolerated) here. sorry i'm such a bitch sometimes. there are a lot of really smart people here. i am seriously okay with quinquagenarians running shit.

wh3rd ftw

for all of the chaos, this is still my fave place on the internet.

not until next month! but yeah

i knew this bc you posted that you were 10 when the marshall mathers lp came out :)

Good ole jaymc.xls

Happy 25th everyone!

wau

known of this place for 20 of the 25

By coincidence SomaFM is also 25 years old:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SomaFM

It's a venerable internet radio station that originally began as a physical radio station but then became a cyber-station, if you will. Ilxor is also the same age as Discogs.com and Mumsnet. And, yes, RateYourMusic, although Ilxor is a few months older. I have the impression that RateYourMusic's userbase is considerably younger than Ilxor's, but that's okay because music is a young person's game.

How do I know all this? Because Wikipedia has a list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_properties_established_in_2000

It's been several million years since I last through of Ananova. She was a virtual cyberhost. An e-celebrity, if you will. Ilxor is also the same age as FuckedCompany.com, which chronicled the companies that failed during the dot-com boom and subsequent bust, and also Virgin Cars! I learn from Wikipedia that Richard Branson expected to sell 24,000 cars in the company's first year, with a turnover of £300m, but in the end it appears to have taken three years to sell 12,000 cars, and in 2005 it ceased trading.

I lived in London and worked as a freelance writer and internet content creator in 2000. I was aware of FreakyTrigger - I remember a "best singles of the 1990s" list that had Disco Inferno on it - but I didn't know that Ilxor was a spin-off until many years later. Like Pitchfork, it was a kind of semi-pro personal blog back then, but now it is a titan.

The late 1990s was an odd period. All of a sudden kids who grew up with Def II and t-t-television and postmodernism were set loose on the internet! At which point it dawned on them that simply being on the internet was not enough to make money. You had to also have something that a lot of people were prepared to pay for. But that meant becoming like Rupert Murdoch and being a low-rent money-grubbing populist, which was naff. In another world the people behind FreakyTrigger could have ended up like the sad losers who founded ASOS, one of whom has a net worth of £220m, but he probably has awful taste in music. I know which I would rather have.

Joint Mumsnet and ilxor 25th Anniversary Fap anyone?

DeviantArt and Gumtree, too. And for those who have long meme memories, Bonsai Kitten.

happy birthday ilm

Not sure that the trans folx of ILX would be very comfortable celebrating the anniversary of Mumsnet.

I know I've never contributed much here, but I've been here from around 2001 irc. such a fucking cool place, love it. Many great posters. Sorry I don't interact much but yer know, just how it is. here 4eva

x

fascinating to revisit the early WDYLL pages - the salad days of internet selfie sharing

anyone else in the "ILXor for more than half my lifetime" club?

Yes! But unlike your hard edged self young Daniel_Rf could not stand the heat of 00's ILX for long, and only returned much later, so don't wanna steal valour here.

Am I the longest-serving random Googler? I posted under my real name in March 2001 when I would have been 20 years old, likely from a university computer lab. That means I've spent well over half my life with you lovely lot.

I've been posting since 03 I think, definitely started reading about then. I still feel like kind of an outsider beyond, like, the Chicago threads of yore and some ILF stuff. Mostly I keep my opinions to myself, which seems to be a recipe for anonymity and suits me well.

i knew this bc you posted that you were 10 when the marshall mathers lp came out :)

― jaymc, Saturday, August 30, 2025 2:46 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

y'know, come to think of it, it came out in may 2000, so i was 9 at the time. what an album for a 9/10 year-old brain to experience

I think I joined in 06 after talking to d0ugl4s w0lk at a comics show where he told me about this place
Think I didn’t post anything until a year later, when after boadrum I could not contain myself

in our home we still say NABKIN DISPENDER

Hip hip hooray for your magical birthing day!

I have been here for 20 years and can palpably feel how my voice has grown and changed. At first I was very cautious, wary of being attacked/shamed, and with rightful reason I’d say. This was not a very nice place for a long time. Assholism was rewarded to a degree that made me uncomfortable but I stayed anyway.
I started to warm up and feel comfortable talking about music circa 2010-2012 or so. This was huge for me — I had always avoided talking about music irl on account of how people treated me when I did. But fully disembodied here, I started to feel more comfortable. Eventually I gave myself permission to play music. Since then my life has changed for the better and I released my first studio recording this year. I’m grateful to ILX for allowing me to be a disembodied voice with a username for long enough that real me felt safe coming out of the protective shell.
Happy birthday Ilx! I am grateful.

Discovered via Freaky Trigger in 2000, in my university’s computer lab (only place to surf the web, naturally) and been a consistent reader and sporadic poster ever since. Can’t even begin to think of all the wonderful things the people here have introduced me to.

I was telling a friend recently that, in the absence of any cool older siblings to clue me into things, the internet itself had to take on that role, and I’m lucky that this place more than any other was the older brother/sister I needed.

ILX used to be a lot more dirty & inappropriate in the early naughty oughties, I guess those were the times

also it seemed like a lot of posters were seriously hungover all the time

For some people I guess. I didn’t personally feel that way.

maybe it was just me

I think I started lurking around 2002ish? So I guess I’m in the “more than half my life” club too. I was a shy poster early on because I was honestly intimidated by the very smart/perceptive posters here, and also the ones who were just kinda assholes (not that there’s zero overlap between those two categories). I am certain I’d like to set all my, say, pre-2010 posts on fire but I also can’t see myself leaving barring the place itself closing down (and I even tried avoiding it for a good year or two) - just too many people I like over here. Even though I’m not really one of the big personality posters here (which I’m fine with tbh), I have met a lot of great folks here at various FAPs; I’ve even hosted a few on my couch over the years and attended one former ILXor’s wedding. Special shout out to the LA crew who invited me to karaoke nights and such when I first moved here and made me feel welcome, shout out Morbius whom I considered a good friend and still miss all the time, and shout out the ILX queers who are very fun to chat with on here and also hang out with IRL.

Wow I just had a look and it's 2004 for me, probably lurking for a few months iirc. Gosh, still check in everyday, still get such a lot from the people here.

I don't want to say that the stirmonster tribute album was 'meant' to be -- obviously it should have never needed to happen to start with -- but in a way, I think it serves as a good 25th anniversary marker as any, something from the community for someone in it.

February 2006 for me. my first post declared Peter Brötzmann a "god," so I guess college tabes was onto something.

I came here from the Animal Collective fan message board after former ilxor "lfam" told me about it. i quickly began posting much more than him.

I did take a long break from 2013-2019, hardly posting but once a year in that period. i am not sure why, in retrospect, but i think i was just figuring things out. I still lurked, but had few posts except "hello!" or "i like this" type of posts.

anyway, happy birthday, i love this site, i love that i have to explain to people what this site is, and i love that i have known some of you for nearly two decades and you still somehow tolerate me.

Still boggles my mind to think I’ve been on here for over 20 years now. I tapered off around 10 years ago, but in the last few years - as I’ve tried to minimize social media’s role in my life and grown sick of most online media - I feel deeply grateful ILX is still alive and active and still feels more or less like it did before twitter existed.

25! wow. great looking out, Ned. i'll have been here 20 years next month. i still feel sometimes like i arrived late to the party, but i like to think i arrived as ilx was transitioning into what it ultimately needed to be. grateful to all you wonderful passionate, knowledgeable, hilarious, often generous and graceful nerds. i don't post quite as much as i used to, for various reasons, but i still find my life and my commutes enriched by this community. <3

I was telling a friend recently that, in the absence of any cool older siblings to clue me into things, the internet itself had to take on that role, and I’m lucky that this place more than any other was the older brother/sister I needed.

― ryan, Tuesday, September 2, 2025 2:39 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

have thought about ILX in exactly the same way

my first post declared Peter Brötzmann a "god," so I guess college tabes was onto something.

clearly following the lead of your personal hero, bill clinton.

I'm on my 18th year of reading ilx, but I lurked for my first 11 years.

I was very intimidated by this place and thought everyone was way smarter than me until I finally read the Luna thread.

i feel like my favorite moments on here were always about the humor.

Excelsior, creeps!

I migrated here after the XTC forums crashed and everything was lost, then a little stint on — was it called musicbrainz? musicheadz? — and have been here since ‘06 or so (prev username lost to the ages when the email I used to sign up was unrecoverable), always lurking & reading & absorbing way more than posting. This place is like the last refuge of the internet I first fell in love with, mostly walls of text by people way smarter and more knowledgeable than I. And funnier. Long may you run.

Ilx is what the internet should have remained as. And it has

lol PBKR that's amazing. I was part of the board then but didn't really know any of the backstory or players involved but I remember Sam quitting.

Just looked it up and my first post as Bee was Wlico's Sky Blue Sky. March 2007, and here I thought it was a Moose thread. I came from the CMJ music board, along with a few others on here too.

I could not survive without this place. Much love for keeping me sane!

Seems my first post (July 2003) was to HTML Playground, a few minutes in advance of starting a new ILM thread! Seems an uncharacteristically cocky debut lol. (I mean, I've never I been a high-volume poster, and rarer still outside of ILM before recently.)

I had however been lurking for ages, stemming from Momus's blog linking to scintillating discussions a bunch of times. I concur that early ILX was more than a little intimidating!

I joined in 2007, I think, but didn't post until about 10 years later. I've left social media altogether (for the better) and this is basically my internet home now. I do love it for finding new films and books and music, but it's so much more than that. It's one of the few sane places left, and I've learned so much from the wise, honest posters here. Keep it coming, y'all.

in 2006, I asked Xhukk E&&y about this spot I read about where they talk about the hottest male and female rock critic (the answers should have been K@@@fa S$$$eh and S&a Mi$%el but wasn't) and he told me about …

My time on social media, which started after I first posted here, was brief and unsatisfying. Gawker Media was the spine of my internet, then later of my experiences in NY media, and then again only of my internet, but then was famously eviscerated. ILX is now pretty much the only komputah spot where I have any presence and engagement, and it is so important to me that I can't fathom how to properly express it. I truly would be bereft without it.

I landed here in 2003, presumably as a result of a music-related Google search, and have been looking in ever since. My calculations show I'm averaging about 155 posts per year, not exactly lurking but not coming close to paying back or forward the education and entertainment I've received here. Ganbatte, y'all!

I happened on this place I think in '00 but maybe '01, following links from Momus' blog, Tanya H's "I hate music" and Freaky Trigger. My main takeaway on the first day was how fascinating and compelling the place was! I stayed late at work to read it all. I tried to find it again the next day, but it was gone! Turned out to be another one of LUSENET's outages, leaving the followers of "I Love Music", "Oaklahoma Highways" and "LCD PROJECTOR (HOME MADE)" twiddling their thumbs. Luckily (I think?) it came back later that day.

My main memory of the site back then was if you were a dumm motherfucker like me, then you had to make some kind of effort to raise your game, there were a lot of super-smart and very erudite regulars, not one of whom took any shit. Intimidating! But, also kind of exhilarating.

I haven't posted and have very rarely looked at the place in a long while, but I'm glad it's still here and extra glad that it's still resolutely web 1.0

I discovered this place through other music message boards, most of which are probably gone now. This place felt intimidating to someone who was just starting to seriously getting into music and still didn't know a whole lot, I think it was only after about five to seven years of following the occasional link to here and reading a bit that I made the leap to creating an account, by then I was in my mid to late 20s and didn't really care as much about what people would think of me. I still mostly lurk, though I like to think I make small occasionally useful contributions.

I stumbled upon ILM about ten years ago and stayed specifically because the place was more mature and hyper-focused on the music. It is kind of funny (to me at least!) to find myself among the younger members of a community while in my late 30s. I may not fit perfectly in ILE but I enjoy all the contributions and debates - in the end they leave more understanding than disagreement - and also the personal stories and great sense of humor. I know some people here are long-time friends, but I'd say the whole place shines a comfy sense of warmth. At least on the good days :p.

>bendy and i were on alt.music.chapel-hill
>scared to ask what's up with 3.2.3

I think I found this place via Usenet, but rejected at first because I was diehard keep-Usenet-going-web-forums-suck. It may have been a link from mookieproof on alt.music.chapelhill! I sorta wish i could find my embarrassing 90s alt.punk posts but alas X-no-archive did its job and kept me scrubbed.

I do know that the first thread I saw was “most interesting trivia about pop music that is 100% false" which I thought was hilarious and shared around, but it was 2005 when i started reading the site regularly and began posting after a few months.

3.2.3. is alive and well and posting insightfully on Metafilter.

Really enjoyed reading this thread, with its many accounts of how people found the place, how nice its been, how its had its ups and downs though you stuck with it. How its a place where you can talk to others, when there's not much of that in real life.

It also feels like a fairly unique thing to be doing for a long time, this talking on the internet for this length of time (esp for those where its over 50% of your spent life).

I also wonder about the many people that have left. Not so much why, but wonder if people also have snapped after many many years, thought it was all a horrible waste too. My mind just went there for a bit..

Found this place via someone's blogroll, not long after starting my own blog. First posted here in January 2002, then started posting more regularly, using this ID, from January 2004. I don't tend to interact that much on a personal level, which is kinda weird as I'm lot more gregarious/rapport-building offline, so I don't think my posts here are particularly representative of my personality. That said, I'm here pretty much every day, and I place a very high value on my ILX experience. I like the way that the format has remained resolutely Web 1.0, but I also like the way that the vibe has evolved beyond its late 2000s nihilistic snarky phase (which I sense is when a lot of people left), into something much more supportive, and hence much more valuable.

joined in 2011 after reading that n+ article on p4k, seemed like an interesting place, took me a while to parse, these days by far the best site I know

happy birthday!

Had coffee with the great former ilxor JBL/JBR when I was in New York over the weekend and reminded me how essential ILX was to me when I first got on it (late 2002 or early 2003) and had just moved to NYC. I went to a few FAPs and met people, but beyond the IRL interactions there was the constant stream of info on arts and music events all over town, and on cool bars and restaurants, NYC life in general. It was a great resource full of smart and interesting people.

Also, this was the third trip in a year — in three cities in two countries — where I've had the chance to hang out with people I met through here. Swell folks all.

I was a stupider, nastier person when I first joined this place. And I've learned so much from talking to people who are more together than me. Meanness is a shitty thing when it's pure malice but it has its place as a tool for reflection. Self-celebration is a dumb thing to me mostly but there's a whole bunch of people here that have taught me to be less stupid and fuck yeah, the system- kind of - works

Mostly

I first encountered ILX in April 2007, shortly after some massive rejiggering of the boards, if I recall correctly?

I lurked for about two weeks before I decided I had something worth saying, replying to sexyDancer here: Please please suggest me some band names or i'll end up in a band called 'The Barbershop Quartet" I was sweating bullets: googling to make sure that joke hadn't been made before, double-checking to make sure that Ozzy Osbourne had not actually been accused of racist sympathies; hoping no one crossposted before I hit submit...and then, nothing. EVER. I maintain that it was a good joke. But most folks here are much smarter and funnier than me.

Which is just to say, from the perspective of an extremely introverted person, it is WILD to me that some of y'all were like, "I think I need to lurk for ten years before I say anything."

hahahahaha oh the joke void, it’s just the pits

Been here a long time, under a couple of names. (Was on a ban last week, of course.) Regardless of whether we like the same albums or TV shows, the ILX population is the smartest group of people I engage with on the internet by a long stretch - so much so that many years ago when I was tasked with editing an anthology, then-current ILXors were the first writers I reached out to and wound up making up the majority of the book.

xp

lol yes one of the benefits (?) of ilx is that it keeps you humble. Let they whomst has never killed a thread cast the first zing.

When I first got here (Feb 2004 via Bookslut), I initially landed in ILBooks and it took a little while for me to venture into other boards -which felt so fast-moving and terrifying tbh. I found my cozy spot in ILCooking (now The Cheese Board) and lurked and lurked. But also, met up in person with so many folks - initially Mackro, and Matos, and that eventually led to Seattle soup parties and guerilla croquet and so much more.

xp You do realize you killed that thread, right?

my first post was sometime in 2001 so I've been here more than half my life. I dislike seeing those early posts of mine come up now and then. I think initially I tried to appear knowledgeable, then pulled back posting at all when I realized people here knew so much more than me. still feels that way, but every now and then there's a topic I can speak knowledgeably about or at least provide a mildly amusing comment for. happy birthday everyone

ilx was good but it wasnt and i joined but didnt until it was and now it is and we mustnt forget all the great posters who have left but also remember it was bad

right

whither nakhchivan? oh, for those halcyon...

i've been here for over half my life. found ilx in 2005 just after starting college, and i'm sure i've learned more here than i did in college. i got acquainted with ilx's style for probably a month or two before posting and, thinking i had a handle on it, i posted under my real name as if i was going to be one of those respectable posters who never embarrasses themselves, but when i debuted with my very first, very brief post (which i would still maintain was totally normal and sensical) an established poster responded as if it were incomprehensible and my precious 18yo self lashed out and insulted them for daring to slander me, and then immediately felt like an idiot for doing so. luckily the incident helped me recognize the need for anonymity and i decided i'd take a different route and do more listening than speaking. incidentally i still don't like that poster! (lol) but i like just about everyone else here and i'm deeply, deeply thankful to ilx as a whole. there's tons of trivial nonsense here as in any other big repository of communication, but beyond that there's a wealth of knowledge, thought, joy, humor, wisdom, and sensitivity that is remarkable

Then there's me. *fart jokes*

I posted under my real name for a few months and then got a job with a big media company and got paranoid about my new bosses somehow seeing my name on some embarrassing post. All of my early posts are embarrassing, but on the other hand 80-year-old me will probably be sneering at my 50-something posts on the ILX IS 50 thread.

paragon of respectability tbh! xpost

I first discovered ilm while googling, iirc, Clifford T. Ward. Spent some time lurking and perusing old threads before deciding to post (it was my first ever message board.) Been here for a little over 20 years now and I still really like this place.

Started reading ILM in 2001 on the advice of a friend, lurked for a good few months, then posted something about Nina Hagen iirc...

I admit it is very interesting hearing all these origin stories since I was, well, here the first day and all. (The proto-origin story is in the FAQ as noted, and essentially alt.music.alternative leading into the star-chamber list was half of its original audience, the other half being sinister, and I very much was part of the first half.)

looks like I first posted back in 2000 :-o iirc I was killing time working at a school computer center back then and nobody I worked with cared as much about cryptospy. have mostly lurked with some irregular posting outside of the rolling metal threads but got a little more chatty during boring ol' lockdown.

anyway, this place is easily one of the best internet communities I've ever discovered and I'm grateful that it still exists. here's to another 25+ years! (good luck ilx/humanity in general)

The first ilxor I ever encountered was donut bitch on rec.music.industrial waaaaaay back in the day; that was my gateway into alt.music.alternative

It is wild to me that I am still in touch with someone I met online 34 years ago solely because we both knew who A Split Second was

He's one of the few overseas ILXors Ive met IRL! Actually now I think about it I've met quite a few. Donut, Mookie, Jaymc, Rob Bolton, chap (I think? sometimes I mix up peoples screen names haha), jergins, and of course Veg :D

Champions all.

agreed!

I have met:
Ned and Elvis Telecom - Terrastock 2008
Jaq, estela, WmC, Clay, lxy & jergins, possibly others? in Portland OR but I forget the year
ian in Portland also, plus we play D&D together almost every week with ex-ilxor 69
grandavis in Charlottesville VA! so many common threads between early message boards/forums and house shows/venues.
Austrian user "born under a bad sine" when he & his wife came through the PNW on a road trip
probably some others I forget?

oh KATE in Portland recently!

I find it amusing that I was on Sinister but didn't detect any particular overlap with ILX until about the time I did the numbers for a B&S poll ca.2018 and received about a zillion ballots. :)

3.2.3. is alive and well and posting insightfully on Metafilter.

<3

it's approaching 20 years since i met trayce and i'm still embarrassed at how short our meeting was, due to circumstances beyond my control

i believe haitch was there too, and perhaps mikey bidness? all of whom have gone on to great things

(fwiw trayce is cute as fuc)

Oh foof. Yeah I do think Haitch and Mikey were there, maybe Jim as well? Its all lost in the mists of time.

And ha yeah Mikey is some kind of minor Twitter sleb now.

Not many of the old ~2001/2002 NZ crew left on here, though I see petra jane at gigs and was in touch w/spectra via IG about some Skeptics lyrics for a friend the other day, ha.

Been over twenty years since Ned & donut were in NZ, and I think Tim F was the only ILx person I met in Melbourne around ... 2006?

I tried to find my earliest post - I thought I'd had a few usernames but the first one I can find I only posted one post and that was 2005.
My second username - I posted under from 2007, apparently.

BUT there is a 2005 post from someone called 'kinder' which is nothing like anything I would ever post, unless it was some reference to something? I'm almost certain that isn't me.
Have you done anything that should have gotten you murdered?

Yeah when I search with my email address that post doesn't show up.

nz ilxor updates:

• doorag still posts on ilx now and then
• lady di is very politically eloquent on FB and IG
• rainy is a mom (super-cute kid) & lives in cailfornia
(• doorag also has two kids -- their mom is ilxor maryann! -- but i dont see pix of them online so often)

my ageing confusions update:

• ilx apparently went thru a renaming of posters while i was on hiatus (2006-ish -- 2011-ish): i still sometimes find myself thinking "but who did this person used to be?" (of names in use for nearly two decades, as if theyre ot who they NOW are)

I've been on here since 2001, but under different names. I've never fitted in here because I don't do internet humour. I do have a sense of humour in real life, but not internet humour, or at least it makes me laugh but I don't know how to do it myself. I used to post quite a bit in the very early days. I was very dull, but unfortunately didn't realise it. When I realised how dull I was, and also that I almost always found myself wishing I'd never said the things I posted, I decided to stop posting. I started again some years later, but much more cautiously, only when I had a strong desire to say something. Sometimes I have that strong desire but I still don't say anything, because I worry I'll get into an argument and/or wish I'd never said it. I'm still earnest and dull. Can't help it.

Having said all that, I've learned a lot here.

I did two FAPs back in the midsts of time, and one more recently when Ned came to the UK and quite a lot of ilxors and associated others had a meetup over in that London. Too many to name, there, but nice to put faces to names, certainly.

I have very fond memories of the epic August 2001 London karaoke night

I still have the recording around somewhere. (Wasn't there -- sadly missed it by a few weeks -- but it sure sounded great!)

My first post was to ILM in 2001, and I was introduced to it by Sean Carruthers. He blamed Ned for being here, so I guess ultimately I blame Ned, too. Sometimes I go back and search for something I posted just to remind myself of an opinion I might've held or whatever, and I remember that, for me, anyway, posts back then were often influenced by the AIM chats we were having on the side. I was drunk posting a lot as well, which didn't help.

I admire a lot of you all greatly

I was here for a while, and then I wasn't, because people got super mean, and then I came back to mainly hang out on TV threads and agree with whatever Veg says.

I started lurking around 2002. So many smart and interesting personalities here throughout the years. I feel lucky to have been a small part of this little corner of the internet.

I've been posting since 2003. Which is bonkers.

What have I done with my life

Could have learned the stock market. Instead, just been sitting here trying to make song titles more reasonable.

I've been on here since 2001, but under different names. I've never fitted in here because I don't do internet humour. I do have a sense of humour in real life, but not internet humour, or at least it makes me laugh but I don't know how to do it myself. I used to post quite a bit in the very early days. I was very dull, but unfortunately didn't realise it. When I realised how dull I was, and also that I almost always found myself wishing I'd never said the things I posted, I decided to stop posting. I started again some years later, but much more cautiously, only when I had a strong desire to say something. Sometimes I have that strong desire but I still don't say anything, because I worry I'll get into an argument and/or wish I'd never said it. I'm still earnest and dull. Can't help it.

Having said all that, I've learned a lot here.

― dubmill, Friday, 5 September 2025 11:25 (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

are you me?

Or me?

Could have learned the stock market. Instead, just been sitting here trying to make song titles more reasonable.

― peace, man, Friday, September 5, 2025 5:38 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Actually, there was a sub board for a while that ran courses, one of them was learning the stock market. I d/l a bunch of Harvard seminars and found some interesting perspectives, and got as far as buying an expensive text book about it. (It arrived so fiercely packaged that I could not get the wrapper off! It's still in the loft! Secure! Impermeable!)

Anyone else remember this?

nz ilxor updates:

• doorag still posts on ilx now and then
• lady di is very politically eloquent on FB and IG
• rainy is a mom (super-cute kid) & lives in cailfornia
(• doorag also has two kids -- their mom is ilxor maryann! -- but i dont see pix of them online so often)

― mark s, Friday, September 5, 2025 9:25 AM (two days ago)

I always forget maryann (& duckling) were ILx posters! Definitely still see them around Auckland. Old ILx/IRE is a bit mixed up with a general Diaryland/Livejournal/zines'n'mixtapes early-aughts era. Di's very active on Insta, yep. Hadn't realised rainy was in California! I still dig out her band Haunted Love's album & EP.

incredible to me that it's been 20 years since the a) luna and b) let's print an ilx book clusterfucks

First posted 21 years ago and have never met anyone from this board IRL. I knew, I think, three regular posters at the time I got involved, but as far as I can tell none of the three is currently active. Dr Morbius lived in my damn neighborhood and I still never met him.

past/present ilxors I've met (may be forgetting a few at NYC faps): JBR/JBL, ian, Morbs, Alfred, James Redd, jon williams, WmC, in orbit, curtis, dmr, Josh in Chicago, mark s. Plus rogermexico, who I've known forever.

only ilxor ive met irl is frogbs (we were in 1st grade together which was pre-ilx by about 7 years) altho me and tombot did some zooms once upon a time for my gov classes

Oh yeah, including zooms I've also met clemenza remotely. Also I forgot to mention former ilxors and former Knoxvillians, the great roxymuzak and Nijoli.

I've met Ned and Scott Seward and Whiney in person. Also several now-retired posters.

i've met a bunch of ppl (i'm old and now live in nyc)

i found dadd1no and mat0s extremely off-putting at first, but pretty engaging subsequently. f0rks pissed me off once, but no biggie. another user i met is great apart from their relentless support of genocide

everyone else i've ever met from ilx has literally been no-notes fantastic

(n.b. never met chocolate cheesecake/masonic boom . . . but i did meet some of their former bandmates . . .)

Tipsy you forgot me, who stayed in your home!

I've met...a lot of you.

i've . . . heard about you

<3

wow, I've met a lot of ILXors

I stopped keeping my ilxors-met list somewhere around 98.

yall some big city slicker ass type ppl

at one point i may have known the 'real' names of both sic and estela

i've long-since forgotten tho

(srsly, someone remind me)

at least i've met sic (good dude)

estella is endlessly standoffish

I've never met an ILXor. In fact, I've never met anyone on my FB friends list except for one non-ILXor person that I friended because of a briefly popular bit of activism they did and didn't remember who they were until later. (I am being deliberately vague here.)

have never and would never meet anyone from "the internet"

fuck you

(for having met estela irl when i haven't)

that was different she hadn't tried toffee crisp it was practically an international mission

nevertheless

she is, by this time, a rotter

only ilxor ive met irl is frogbs (we were in 1st grade together which was pre-ilx by about 7 years)

Every piece of this is blowing my mind

It's been a long time since I met any face-to-face Ilxors.
Used to hang out with a poster who went by different names including Gregory Henry, but we've lost touch and I don't know if he still posts here.
I'm good mates with Willl as we once attended the same friends' birthday party and realised we both posted on here.
I did used to enjoy the FAPs that happened in London in the 2000s. We should do those again. Met a lot of key playaz back in those days.
And I especially loved a really fun day out punting and going for a curry in Cambridge c2004 with Ken C, Masonic Boom, pinkpanther and a few others. Just one of the best days ever!

my first ilxor meeting was perfect: i happened upon alfred sitting outside a bookstore in miami reading and writing, he may or may not have been sipping a negroni. he seemed to be having such a lovely afternoon i was reluctant to interrupt his peace.

my second ilxor meeting was also perfect: i encountered stevie d at a music festival in philadelphia and he introduced me tons of people, clued me in to a great afterparty, and generally massively upgraded the entire trip

I’ve met Morbz (RIP), Swen, donna rouge, a load of other gays from the old days of the gay thread, Ned, sarahell (who is a homie), justin3, and many more who no longer post. i would very much like to meet many of you in person, where i only occasionally slip into what my husband calls “polemic mode”

obvs i see Stevie a fair amount, since we are both gay Philadelphians

table, I think you know the wife of one former ILXor Fluffy Bear; she is a poet named MC Hyland

20 years of on and off lurking - exactly half my life. pretty sure I stumbled on here via forks’ music blog back in the day. For a while, I didn’t even know other boards existed, I thought it was all ILM

Ned was the first person to reply to my introductory post, our constant and north star

I met wins, seandalai and the lex 10 years ago, can’t believe it’s been that long.

would love to meet more of you though - most of y’all are cool, even the annoying ones :)

oh i do! i have met Fluffy Bear too, i hope he is doing better, he seemed to be on the mend in a recent update from MC.

Yeah, he is doing much better, basically had the best possible outcomes you can get from a stomach cancer diagnosis

I've met quite a few, I think - never went to a London FAP but did play the ILx Has A Bucket fest so met a fair number of London types there.

Weirdest ilx0r meeting was probably Ronan being at my brother's wedding.

Still never met Ned ;_;

I met the shimura curves in liverpool once. they were great!

Oh yes of course emil.y we met once when our bands played the same Halloween bill at the Brixton Windmill, probably over 10 years ago I reckon

I have met many chilxors (jaymc, n/a, la lechera, & others) plus occasional visitors to Chicago (in orbit, Morbs, sic, WmC, Alfred & others). I can't remember at the moment if I have met anyone in cities that are not Chicago, but I might have.

I've met lots of ILXors on trips to Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Nashville, and multiple Big Earses in Knoxville. Too many to list, but it was my pleasure in every case. My first posts were in June 2001, mainly trying to gin up interest in people playing Literati (Yahoo's version of Scrabble) with me. Just a few posts before I drifted away for a few years. Starting posting a lot more in 2004. The less attention given to my first login, the better.

Oh yes of course emil.y we met once when our bands played the same Halloween bill at the Brixton Windmill, probably over 10 years ago I reckon

― Now read it backwards. (dog latin)

Yes! That was a good night, can't believe it's that long ago...

Ned was the first person to reply to my introductory post, our constant and north star

Too kind of course and thanks! It's not just me, though! DJP was there first day. (Trying to think who still is? Should double check that thread I linked up top.)

xp 2014, is my guess... Yeah feels like no time at all.

Been here since 2004, but far less visible/active than I used to be. Can only recall meeting ILXors three or four times way back in 2005/6.

omg i forgot to mention Jaq and the other Seattle area ilxors, who also met my husband!!

Seriously WmC, that first meetup we did in Seattle was EPIC. Gravel Puzzleworth in a cow suit, none of us actually living here, durian popsicle - all of it!

Table, that was an excellent listening club event!

xp 2014, is my guess... Yeah feels like no time at all.

― Now read it backwards. (dog latin), Monday, 8 September 2025 17:34 bookmarkflaglink

can confirm it was 2014 as I was there, iirc so was Fizzles

Jaq, that trip is one of my favorite travel memories. Still the only time I've been to a dim sum restaurant, I regret to say!

Was gonna say I'd never met any ilxors IRL, but then remembered exchanging a few posts of recognition upon encountering poster calling himself "peepee" (his initials) who worked at the uni radio station simultaneously with me, 20 years earlier

Table, that was an excellent listening club event!

we had such a good time, there’s also photographic evidence still up on facebook, with erstwhile ilxors donna brown, the Rev, and kate78, among others!!

I ended up here after seeing ILX occasionally mentioned on Dissensus forum. Initially signed up and posted some dire edgy challops hot takes before I got the lay of the land and got deservedly roasted for it - lurked for the next half decade before daring to post again under a new alias.

IRL I’ve met Dog Latin as mentioned above, and have a hunch one of the posters on here from Cardiff used to be a punter at a techno night we used to do at Clwb.

only ilxor ive met irl is frogbs (we were in 1st grade together which was pre-ilx by about 7 years)
Every piece of this is blowing my mind

― our beloved RIFF LORD (DJP), Monday, September 8, 2025 9:30 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

we did not know that we were both on ilx until 2020 during pandemic zooms when i noticed his christian name and figured out he was my best friend in 1st grade b4 he unceremoniously moved to wisconsin. 1993 was the last time we had knowingly seen or heard from each other.

Goddamn, bringing people together!

this is sort of like when i saw the handle of one “eppy” on early ILX posts and was like “that must be M1ke, the camp counselor who changed my life with a couple mixtapes when i was in 8th grade,” and indeed, it was. we are still friends, he is/was working on a book about “Party in the USA”

I met several former UK ilxors at various times in the mid-to-late 2000s, but I think the only one of them who still remains is mark s, who I last saw in 2015. North Yorkshire ain't exactly stuffed full of 'em!

xp in a similar way, i went to high school with Oops/Granny Dainger. and i also met Hstencil and Nabisco in Chicago before meeting them again on ILX.

Tipsy you forgot me, who stayed in your home!

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera)

D’oh! And brought us tasty Chicago treats. My apologies, it was a delight!

Speaking of photographic evidence I wonder if I still have the pix of both Donut and Haitch lying in the gutter with their head in an abandoned child's pram.

Which they willingly posed for I will point out!

The only concrete evidence of my ever having been within a mile of an ILX poster may be this post indicating that I seemingly saw Casey B's high school band opening for Pseudo Echo as a young child!

[A few posts up from that one, strictly speaking]

I also went to high school with a couple former ilxors: one started a pretty infamous ILM thread, the other posted here for years before I realized I knew them irl

iatee was the only other poster I've met

oh wau, Nag, you necroed the Pseudo Echo thread!! good times.

: )
I believe it contained some of my very first posts. (I think I quickly established a pattern of disappearing for 10.5 months of any year though, ensuring that I'm something of a perpetual n00b lol.)

I typed my ilx origin story and got an error message

Xp way upthread — you can totally trade stocks and ilx at the same time

But I probably posted it on the 20th anniversary thread and a few others so … nbd

I have met many ilxors in person or via phone/zoom and everyone was great with only a couple glaring exceptions!

have met:
douglas (former ilxor, intro to ilx)
j0n w (former ilxor and for a time downstairs neighbor)
tehresa (former ilxor)
bell labs (former ilxor)
sexydancer
dmr
ian (d&d someday imo)
in orbit (thought of u at ren faire last weekend)
La Lechera (perpetual source of inspo/can't wait to hear new album!)
skot (major remaining to-do is visiting store!)
forks (hooked me up with greenwood cemetery and tons of cbr's)
ezsnappin (hooked me up with thin lizzy library)
thus sang freud (hooked me up with television tickets)
nate carson (hooked me up with Univers Zero by playing it on pre-show PA before Agalloch show)
kingfish
veronica moser
wins
dr casino
treeship
morbs
fizzles
without exception, wonderful people
weird that i've never run into mookieproof!

oh duh also jjusten!

It's nearly a year since rrrobyn left us. We've had some great people here.

i think i started posting on ilx my senior year of college, which was 2000-2001, so it must have been not too long after it started, fuck
i've met many ilxors but i have a memory like a sieve so i will not attempt to list them all
tbh i've found ilx more aggravating/boring than entertaining/edifying for a long time but i still come here from force of habit, though my level of interaction has declined a lot and there have been periods where i was off ilx completely

We've had some great people here.

A number to name gone who I'd met, like onimo, but I will always especially miss Rickey Wright, who had the all time great display name of "If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up." A beloved member of the Seattle contingent and someone who I got to know more as I started visiting the city more in the 2000s for PopCon and other reasons. Way too soon.

i feel like i met rrrobyn but i never actually did

such was her vivid personhood

We have lost way too many of us! Rrobyn, Morbs, Bimble, Rickey, Liz, Onimo, Martin, and I feel terrible now that I might have missed someone. But I think of them all, at some time.

rrrobyn was just, like, the best person. so kind

Of that list I realize Bimble was the only one I hadn’t met. We had our differences but time has shown me more clearly what he was working through.

& 2 more deads - george gosset, cameron bain

miss these guys RIP

one lovely departed soul who has not been mentioned who i spent a good deal of time with (almost as much as Morbs!) and think of quite often:

Jack Cole

I miss him immensely